Chapter Text
The end of March has arrived. And that means the day of the university's spring showcase is finally here!
After a month of preparations, all the participants are ready to show their talents to the entire campus.
"It's finally here..." Zhang Hao couldn't help but shiver. "So many people..."
"It's just people within the school." Matthew tries to uplift the tension. "It's not like there's a huge media coverage here."
Except when Gyuvin comes in and...
"Umm, actually..." That doesn't sound good. "The principal accepted the local TV station's offer to film the entire showcase."
"What?!" Taerae couldn't believe it.
But Jiwoong... "Oh boy..."
As a former idol, he knows these kinds of situations can happen in one way or another. But what about a seasonal school showcase is worth filming for live TV?
<A lot of unanswered questions...>
'You're one to talk!'
"Come to think of it..." Taerae remembered something "We still haven't thought up of a name!"
Everyone was so busy this past week that they forgot to come up with a new name. For obvious reasons, they can't go with their original name Trio Stars. They came up with random band names that sound both either good or bad until Jiwoong comes up with...
"Zero... Base... One?"
"Hmm?" Everyone else didn't seem to catch that the first time.
"ZEROBASEONE..." Jiwoong repeats and explains the meaning. "Starting from zero and rising up to one."
"I... like that."
Zhang Hao seems to like the name. But Jiwoong can tell that he's blushing a little and he knows why...
And while the others agree with that name, Jiwoong couldn't help but turn around and hide his face in his hands. After fixing up the group's costumes, Dawn and Dusk comes up to him to comfort him.
"Out of every band name in my head, why did that one come out of my mouth?"
"Didn't you just explain the meaning?" Dusk asked, wondering why Jiwoong is embarrassed about it.
"Yeah but..." He turned around for a second, hoping that the others won't hear him. "The more I think about it, the more it sounds like some kind of inuendo..."
"And since Hao clearly blushed at that..." Dawn remarked, observing Zhang Hao's current expressions from afar. "I think he already got the idea."
"Yeah..."
It's still only hours away from the showcase and the assembly gym is getting more and more filled up as more people come in and take their seat on either the prepared chairs or the bleachers.
The group, now ZEROBASEONE, are in Jiwoong's studio, making some last minute adjustments to their act.
"I thought it was supposed to start of 7pm." Gyuvin re-checks the timetable. "And we're on at around 8?"
"From what I heard from the headmaster." Taerae said as he tunes his guitar.
Zhang Hao is tuning his violin, Matthew is organizing their sheet music, Jiwoong is making sure the sound system is working for them and their familiars are helping with everything else.
"I wonder who's going on first?" Kyubi wondered.
"Probably the school's dance circle." Rey thinks. "And I really want to know who the guy in the mask really is."
"Guy in a mask?" Jiwoong unknowingly thought out loud when...
"I think you mean me."
A guy in a black costume and mask approached ZEROBASEONE and even with his mask, Jiwoong could tell that he was suppressing his true emotions. There was no familiar with him, so he either has no familiar or he does and it's hiding somewhere.
"Hanbin hyung!" Another guy in a white costume and his rabbit familiar appeared. "We need you for our final rehearsal."
"Sorry, Yujin."
The two left, leaving the group stunned.
"His name's Hanbin, huh? Kinda cool." Gyuvin couldn't help but compliment the masked dancer.
"But why is he wearing a mask?" Matthew wondered.
"Family issues?" Zhang Hao thought out loud, thinking it could be a possibility.
"Maybe?" Taerae seems to agree with that. "And I think I've seen Yujin a few times before..."
But with Jiwoong...
'Hanbin? Yujin?'
Sung Hanbin : A 20-year-old architect student who has a secret passion for dancing
Han Yujin : A 15-year-old architect student who skipped a few grades and also loves dancing
'Was I supposed to meet them like this?'
<No, actually...>
<They weren't supposed to appear to you until Mission 4.>
'Typical...'
Jiwoong still doesn't know how the previous players did in this game but judging by how things are going for him, the system seems to be vastly different from the past attempts. And for some of the previous players to end up dead, they must have been really problematic to end up dead upon returning to the real world...
Speaking of previous attempts, Jiwoong still doesn't fully know how his magic in this world works.
'This hair clip is supposed to change, right? But it hasn't since that night...'
The hair clip's default form is that of a blue crystalline butterfly but it's been in its camouflaged state more often. At first, Jiwoong thought it was because he still wasn't used to magic. But it's been almost a month and he still hasn't gotten the hang of this.
'Maybe there's something more to it...'
"Hey gang!"
"Professor Hwang?" Jiwoong was surprised to see his professor here at this time of day.
"Who?" The others don't seem to know who this is.
"He's Jiwoong's professor." Dawn explains.
"You boys have a minute?"
"Sure, professor."
The boys followed Jinwoo to talk about their turn in the showcase. But little did they know, this would lead to their downfall.
(Footsteps)
"Huh?" Dusk thought he heard something.
"Dusk?"
"I sense trouble."
And he would be correct...
As the gang came back to see some other students messing with their things!
"Hey!" Gyuvin went straight at them with Kyubi right behind him.
Jiwoong and Taerae helped Gyuvin up while Jinwoo took care of the troublemakers. It turns out these guys are from the school's dance circle but were disqualified from being in today's showcase by their leader.
"Seriously?" Jiwoong couldn't believe how ridiculous this was.
"Unfortunately" Jinwoo had to break the news. "But at least your instruments are okay."
"But our costumes..." Zhang Hao could only stare at the mannequins with their damaged costumes.
The bases seem to be mostly fine minus a few tears that Jiwoong can just sew back up. But the rest of the details, that's not going to be an easy fix.
And even more so when it took Jiwoong weeks to finish them and the gang only have a few hours left until showtime!
"Now what?!"
Everyone starts panicking as their familiars try to assure them that it's going to be okay. Jiwoong takes a good look at the situation and figures out a way to fix this.
"Dusk, I'm going to need that blue fabric and some ribbon. Dawn, could you get me some thread and my mini sewing stapler?"
"What are you thinking?" Dawn asks as he and Dusk changed to their full humanoid forms.
"We're going to show those selfish bastards who they're messing with."
After hours of waiting, it's finally time for the showcase to start. But due to some unforeseen behind-the-scenes disasters, they had to re-order the line up of participants. Thanks to Jinwoo's assistance, ZEROBASEONE were placed at the end as the final act of the night.
"Almost done..."
He managed to repair the others' costumes to the best of his abilities but he still doesn't have time to repair his own. And even if he did, it wouldn't be as good as the others.
"Maybe I could―"
But he checks the time and it's almost 8:30pm and doesn't have much more time left.
"Oh, what's the use?!"
"Jiwoong..."
Dawn and Dusk stopped fixing Jiwoong's costume and went to cheer him up. But this time, Jiwoong can't seem to break out of his anger and sadness.
"The others will just have to go on without me."
"Is that what you really want?"
Jiwoong got startled by the voice and saw that it was the same masked guy from before, who he know knows as Sung Hanbin.
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard from professor Hwang about those jerks wrecking your act." Hanbin told him. "I'm really sorry about them."
But Jiwoong decided to subside his anger for a bit. "Let me guess, they didn't take their disqualification lightly?"
"Yeah..."
"There's that rodent smell again."
As Dusk just said that, Kiran came out of Hanbin's jacket.
"I guess you mean me. I'm Kiran, Hanbin's familiar. And yes, I am a hamster-type."
While Dusk and Kiran started playfully bantering, Hanbin comes up to Jiwoong and Dawn to try and help with their current problem.
"What's going to happen to them?" Jiwoong asks out of curiosity.
"Professor Hwang told me that the principal had just suspended them until further investigation."
"Investigation?"
"Turns out they've caused trouble outside of school as well..."
"Yikes..."
<Tough luck, huh?>
'They had it coming to them...'
"I should've dealt with them better." Hanbin clearly felt guilty of what happened.
But Jiwoong doesn't think that. "You did what you could. It's their own egos' fault."
Like the egos of the people who made fun of him during his middle school years, or even the majority of his current company superiors. When taking that into consideration, Jiwoong couldn't help but feel like most of any world are still against him in every way.
"Jiwoong hyung!"
The others have been looking for Jiwoong when he didn't show up. They were glad to see their costumes all fixed up but that quickly subsided when they saw that Jiwoong's is still damaged beyond repair.
They were also surprised to see the masked guy in here with Jiwoong.
"I mean no harm."
Hanbin defends himself but to his surprise...
"We know." Zhang Hao reassures him. "You've been comforting him. That's more than what we can thank you for."
"Hanbin hyung!" Yujin arrives, still catching his breath. "We're on in 10 minutes! What are you do―"
"Not now, Yujin!" Hanbin half-scolds his younger friend. "There's been a disaster here."
And while the gang tries to help Jiwoong, he was on the verge of tearing up. But due to his dark past, he kept holding his tears back, telling himself in his mind to not show any weakness in front of his new friends.
Dusk saw Jiwoong struggling with his inner thoughts and without thinking, he transformed into his full humanoid form and dragged Jiwoong out of the room. Dawn was about to follow them but had to stay and briefly explain what just happened.
"Well, this is a new predicament..."
<This didn't happen before.>
<Even with the sudden changes, this kind of thing never...>
"Oh, just shut up! This is been more trouble than we've ever been in!"
Dusk managed to drag Jiwoong to his studio before his full form had given out and returned to his fairy avatar form.
"That's should do it for now. How are you feeling, Jiwoong?"
"I don't know... Who cares about me? This world isn't even real! It's a video game..."
"Jiwoong..."
<This may be a video game to you.>
<But this is actually...>
"Oh, don't even think about it!"
Against his better judgement, Dusk temporarily cancels out the game system from Jiwoong's head to help ease his mind.
Despite only being with him for less than a month, he already knows how much pain his human companion suffered from in the real world. And even though Dusk is the more impulsive one between him and Dawn, he does has a certain criteria of how to act towards others, especially those who have shown genuine kindness towards Jiwoong.
"I should've just stayed in the shadows... I can't be on stage anymore..."
When Jiwoong first started out as an idol, he thought he was going to overcome everything despite the occasional downfall. But he has had one too many of these bad experiences that traumatized him to this day.
Even after coming to this game world, he still has nightmares about everything; enduring bullying at school, his previous idol agencies mistreating him and his teams, his family's deaths, harassment at his workplace, and so much more.
"And even if I try to make things better for everyone else, what does that make me?"
"Everything!" Dusk shouts, surprising Jiwoong. "Those jerks just didn't want to see it. They didn't know anything about you and had to audacity to treat you like that! But I know that you're more than what you're thinking about yourself. So stop downplaying yourself and go prove them wrong!"
"Dusk..."
"You might not see it, Jiwoong, and I can understand why. But I know you're much more than that. And as a partner, I want you to keep going forward."
For a while, Jiwoong only thought of Dusk as representing his old impulsiveness that he had long repressed. But after this heated conversation, he started to see his cat familiar as something more than that. A part of him he had forgotten long before he did began losing faith in himself but also, something familiar.
Or rather, someone familiar?
"I..."
<Said too much as usual?>
'You're one to talk. But unlike you, I didn't go too far. And this is going to be worth it, even more than all other sacrifices I'm going to make for Jiwoong after this. And I'm sure Dawn is also going to agree with me on that.'
<You really care about him, huh?>
<As expect of being his br...>
'Woah there! Let's not talk about that for now...'
Dusk sees Jiwoong walking out of the studio and follows right behind him.
"And I'm going to make sure no one hurts him again."